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Subject: Re: Character device major numbers.
To: dchapes@zeus.leitch.com (Dave Chapeskie)
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 1996 14:22:52 -0700 (PDT)
From: "JULIAN Elischer" <julian@ref.tfs.com>
Cc: FreeBSD-hackers@FreeBSD.org
In-Reply-To: <199604241631.MAA06404@ale.zeus.leitch.com> from "Dave Chapeskie" at Apr 24, 96 12:31:19 pm
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If you are using -current, things are differnt to -stable..
however You could safely assign yourself numbers after the end of
those asssigned. Probably extending the array to past 128, and using 128,129,130
would be a good idea.. alternatively, you could use the 'dynamic' numbers
assigned to LKMs. Under -current all Major numbers are dynamic in theory,
though we have not yet the infrastructure to do that in practice..


> 
> Hello all, I have a problem I hope someone can help me with.
> 
>     The company I work for is using FreeBSD a new product.  We've written
> three device drivers to support some custom cards that the product needs
> to use.  The problem is that there is only one reserved cdev major
> number.
> 
>     IMHO, It doesn't make sense for my company to go through the effort
> of making the drivers loadable to sidestep the major number issue since
> the product is a complete system and we provide a prebuilt kernel and the
> drivers will be in constant use while the system is in use.
> 
>     It also doesn't make sense to request that multiple cdev major
> numbers be reserved just for these Leitch drivers since the cards are not
> widely available (two of the three will not be sold outside of this
> system at all).
> 
>     What I'd like to recommend is that several additional major numbers
> be reserved for local use.  For example having eight reserved major
> numbers for use within any one organization should be sufficient for any
> current organizations and yet should not impact the size of the cdev/bdev
> switch tables very much.
> 
>     What do you think?  Is there a better solution?
> 
> -- 
> Dave Chapeskie
> Leitch Technology International Inc.
> Email: dchapes@zeus.leitch.com
>